A keynote speech I gave at the Doctoral Forum of MOOC Research in Beijing.

1. Mapping the Terrain of
MOOC Research
描绘慕课研究地形地貌
Bodong Chen • 陈伯栋
Assistant Professor • 助理教授
University of Minnesota • 明尼苏达大学
chenbd@umn.edu
bodong.ch

2. todaysmeet.com/MOOC

3.
陈瑞元《藏族女孩》(The Tibetan Girl) ProfessorWilliam H. Goodyear

4. My Journey
ʺI was (almost like) that girl.ʺ
Beijing Normal, Peking University
University of Toronto, Canada
University of Minnesota, USA

5. My Journey in MOOCs

6. As a cMOOC Learner

7. As an xMOOC Learner
Credit: Ramin Rahimian / NYT

8. As an xMOOC Learner
Credit: Coursera

9. As a Data Analyst/Scientist
Examining the relationship between student intent, expectations,
behaviours and outcomes in six Coursera MOOCs at the
University of Toronto

10. As an Investigator
MOOCs as an alternative for teacher professional development:
Examining persistent teacher‑learners in one Chinese MOOC
(Lead: Wang; co‑lead: Chen & Shang)

11. Agenda
Map the terrain of MOOC research 已经都做了什么
Ways to contribute to the literature 怎么做
Call for meaningful change‑making 为何做
干货 + 鸡汤

14. MOOC Research Initiative (MRI)
The Dividing Point, 2013
$835K in total, $10‑25K each
Athabasca University
266 ‑> 78 ‑> 28
Final reports online

15. Research on cMOOCs

16. Research on xMOOCs
(edX and alike)
(Ebben & Murphy, 2014)

17. Mapping the Terrain: A
Bibliometric Study
一项关于慕课的文献计量学研究
(Chen, Grauwin, & Lund, in preparation)
Who are producing scientific knowledge about MOOCs?
What topics are they researching?
How the terrain is changing over time?

18. Data
Scopus
A major academic index. Searched on September 15th, 2017.
Query
TITLE‑ABS‑KEY ( mooc* ) OR TITLE‑ABS‑KEY ( ʺmassive
open online course*ʺ )
Dataset
2301 in total (since 2000)
* A few surprising guests to be removed

19. Data Analyses
Descriptive analysis
Keyword co‑occurence analysis
Bibliographic Coupling
(Garfield, 1990)

21. Rank Language Record count % of 2301
1 English 2204 95.78
2 Spanish 32 1.39
3 Chinese 11 0.48
4 German 10 0.43
5 English; Italian 8 0.35
6 French 8 0.35
7 English; Spanish 5 0.22

22. Ebben & Murphy, 2014
An earlier study based on 25 articles from 2009‑2013.

23. Gasevic et al., 2014
An early study based on 78 Phase 2 MRI submissions.

24. US: 31%
Spain: 9%
UK: 9%
China: 7%

25. Rank Subject category Count %
1 Social Sciences 510 22.16
2 Computer Science 286 12.43
3 Chemistry 113 4.91
4 Engineering 111 4.82
5 Business 52 2.26
6 Materials Science 49 2.13
7 Medicine 48 2.09
8 Arts and Humanities 33 1.43
9 Mathematics 33 1.43
10 Chemical Engineering 30 1.3

26. Rank Publication source Count % of 2301
1 Lect. Notes Comput. Sci.
104 4.52
2 LS ‑ Proc. ACM Conf. Learn. Scale
77 3.35
3 ACM Int. Conf. Proc. Ser.
71 3.09
4 Int. Rev. Res. Open Distance Learn.
60 2.61
5 CEUR Workshop Proc.
56 2.43
6 L@S ‑ ACM Conf. Learn. Scale
40 1.74
7 Commun. Comput. Info. Sci.
39 1.69
8 ASEE Annu. Conf. Expos. Conf. Proc.
32 1.39
9 Proc. Front. Educ. Conf. FIE
28 1.22
10 Distance Educ.
24 1.04

27. Interdisciplinarity 跨学科
Research fragmentation
(e.g., EdTech vs. LS)
A study of literature during 2013‑2015
1. Mostly Education and CS
2. Greater representation of CS
3. Increasing interdisciplinary
(Gasevic et al., 2014; Liyanagunawardena et al., 2013; Veletsianos & Shepherdson, 2015)

28. Research Topics/Themes
MOOC literature during 2008‑2012
learner agency
connectivism
actor network theory
learner experience
pedagogies
technology ...
(Liyanagunawardena et al., 2013)

29. Research Topics/Themes
MOOC literature during 2009‑2013
cMOOCs (2009–2012)
engagement
creativity
xMOOCs (2012–2013)
learning analytics
assessment
critical discourse
(Ebben & Murphy, 2014)

30. Research Topics/Themes
68 MRI Phase 2 submissions in 2013
Engagement and learning success
MOOC design and curriculum
Self‑regulated and social learning
SNA and networked learning
Motivation, a itude and success criteria
(Gašević et al., 2014)

31. Research Topics/Themes
2301 MOOC Literature during 2008‑2015
Bibliographic Coupling (Garfield, 1990)
(Chen, Grauwin, & Lund, in preparation)

32. Live Demo

33. Research Topics/Themes
2301 MOOC Literature during 2008‑2015
Keywords Co‑occurrence
(Chen, Grauwin, & Lund, in preparation)

34. Live Demo 2

35. Put In Your Work!

36. Common Pitfalls
需尽量避免的常见陷阱
Ill‑informed 综述不够
Mis‑aligned 方法上条理不清
Theory‑free 无理论支撑
Insignificant 意义较弱

40. Why experimental design at all?
Why to mine ʺbigʺ data at all?
实证主义 Positivism
后实证主义 Postpositivism
实用主义 Pragmatism
批判理论 Critical Theory
现象学 Phenomenology
Reich, J. (2015). Rebooting MOOC Research. Science, 347(6217), 34–35.

41. Not Only About MOOCs!
Raise our collective vioce
Challenge the international status quo
Tackle hidden assumptions, e.g.:
What does learning mean?
Who knows stuff? Who owns knowledge?
MOOCs as a tool to address equity issues
related to location, class, socio‑economic status, race, culture, etc.

42.
What will you think next time?

43. Thank You!
• chenbd@umn.edu bodong.ch